Car Free Americahttp://carfreeamerica.net
City Planning, Transportation Policy, Sustainable LifeTue, 05 Dec 2017 16:22:49 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.8.6Turning Dallas’ McKinney Ave. Into A True Transit Streethttp://carfreeamerica.net/2017/10/13/turning-dallas-mckinney-ave-into-a-true-transit-street/
Fri, 13 Oct 2017 15:36:52 +0000http://carfreeamerica.net/?p=1368McKinney Ave. in Dallas is a gem. It has interesting new architecture, lively night life and high end apartments all connected by one of America’s best vintage streetcar fleets. As Dallas’ streetcar system expands and higher density development continues to be built, pedestrian volumes are […]

McKinney Ave. in Dallas is a gem. It has interesting new architecture, lively night life and high end apartments all connected by one of America’s best vintage streetcar fleets. As Dallas’ streetcar system expands and higher density development continues to be built, pedestrian volumes are increasing on McKinney Ave as well. Traffic is already fast on the street, and while some parts of the corridor are paved with a stamped brick pattern to slow traffic, 4 traffic lanes by nature encourage higher speeds compared to narrower streets. Walk around during rush hour and you’ll see many BMWs traveling in excess of 35mph. Visit on Friday or Saturday night and you’ll also see cars blocking the streetcars. The land uses and great transit access of McKinney Ave. promote walkability, but the street itself is mostly intimidating and uncomfortable for pedestrians. The presence of the streetcar tracks complicates proposals for a road diet, but an interim solution may be possible.

Road diets have been shown to reduce collisions, slow traffic speeds, and create a more pedestrian friendly environment, but because McKinney Ave’s tracks are in the middle of the street, a traditional 2 lane + a middle turn lane conversion isn’t possible right now. A low cost solution could involve converting the shared streetcar lanes into streetcar, bus and left turn only lanes while keeping the outer lanes for through traffic. This design solves several problems:

Speeding Traffic: Through traffic will be less likely to speed on a single lane

Valet/Drop off access: There’s still space for through traffic to go around curbside Uber/Valet pickups using the streetcar lane if need be

Transit bottlenecks: Faster bus and streetcar service with dedicated lanes

A possible low-cost road diet for McKinney Ave. between St. Paul and Allen Streets.

Since this solution doesn’t involve geometric changes, pavement, signage and enforcement will be important. The dedicated streetcar/bus lanes will need to be painted to discourage through traffic, and frequent overhead signs will need to communicate proper lane designations to drivers. Buses will also have to pull in and out of the through lane for boardings, so bus stop consolidations may be necessary to help the street work more efficiently. The #39 stops almost every block on this section of McKinney, so there’s definitely an opportunity to remove some stops to make this bus route work better. The middle lanes are already bottlenecks for through traffic due to the slower moving streetcars and left-turning traffic, so formalizing this arrangement shouldn’t significantly affect capacity, either. Similar center transit lanes exist in other cities and they’re part of NACTO’s transit street design guidelines. Toronto recently implemented a similar design on King Street which is prioritizing streetcar service while reducing right of way for automobiles. As McKinney Ave. densifies and becomes a mixed use destination, transit-only lanes can make the corridor a true transit street while calming traffic and improving pedestrian safety.

]]>Interview with Streetfilm’s Clarence Eckersonhttp://carfreeamerica.net/2017/10/09/interview-with-streetfilms-clarence-eckerson/
Mon, 09 Oct 2017 16:43:58 +0000http://carfreeamerica.net/?p=1350Clarence Eckerson has spent more than a decade documenting complete street best practices all over the world with Streetfilms. Produced by OpenPlans, a 501c3 non-profit organization, Streetfilms produces educational videos about sustainable mobility and interviews the policy makers, planners, and engineers responsible for creating these […]

]]>Clarence Eckerson has spent more than a decade documenting complete street best practices all over the world with Streetfilms. Produced by OpenPlans, a 501c3 non-profit organization, Streetfilms produces educational videos about sustainable mobility and interviews the policy makers, planners, and engineers responsible for creating these projects. Clarence is also an avid cyclist and answered a few questions about how to build more sustainable streets in American cities. An expanded version of this interview will appear in my upcoming book, “Human Speed”.

As a frequent cyclist and pedestrian, what do you think are the most dangerous street design issues facing pedestrians and cyclists on American streets?

I firmly believe that Leading Pedestrian Intervals should be standard just about everywhere. LPIs help give both pedestrians and cyclists a head start (well not legally for cyclists) and they have been popping up in my neighborhood of Jackson Heights by the dozens. They really allow you to counteract that right hook or a car driver launching their vehicle ahead and trying to cut off a pedestrian.

I start with that because the most dangerous street design component outside city centers are the wide rounded curbs at intersections that allow drivers to not even take their foot of the gas to make a turn. In many of the best cities you won’t see much of this, but I was recently in Los Angeles and could not believe how common they are. Even when you have the light as a pedestrian you have no guarantee anyone will stop and wait. You feel naked crossing the street. Like you have zero defense. The roadways are very dangerous. It is no wonder so many drive everywhere in L.A.

What is one important thing American cities can learn about complete streets and traffic safety from their European counterparts?

In most of Europe, in nearly every city, every project that removes car capacity, opens up public spaces or re-distributes streets more equitably among bikes, pedestrians and transit users is a success. It leads to citizens wanting more of these types of projects and the momentum continues. I can’t think of one project yet that was deemed a failure that reverted back to an automobile-only design (there must be, but they must be rare).

Many European cities are tackling parking with vigor. In Zurich, they have held the number of parking spaces static since 1996. Every year Copenhagen takes away a small percentage of parking out of their downtown. In Oslo they are removing large chunks of parking in their downtown and replacing them with much-needed bike lanes.

Automobile parking is essentially the biggest enemy to complete streets and better cities. The less parking you have, the better your city.

]]>Donald Appleyard’s Livable Streetshttp://carfreeamerica.net/2017/09/25/revisiting-donald-appleyards-livable-streets/
Mon, 25 Sep 2017 02:01:25 +0000http://carfreeamerica.net/?p=1327Updates on Car Free America may be a bit sporadic for the next couple of months. I’ll be working on a book tentatively titled “Human Speed” which will chronicle my time living car free and the city planning lessons I learned from the experience. It […]

Updates on Car Free America may be a bit sporadic for the next couple of months. I’ll be working on a book tentatively titled “Human Speed” which will chronicle my time living car free and the city planning lessons I learned from the experience. It will be available on Amazon (and here on Car Free America) in the first quarter of 2018. I’ll post more information about the book later this year.

In the mean time, here’s a classic video which greatly influenced my perspective on transportation planning. Donald Appleyard, an urban designer who taught at UC Berkeley, talked about livable streets decades before “complete streets” entered the lexicon.

In the late 1960s, Appleyard conducted a renowned study on livable streets, comparing three residential streets in San Francisco which on the surface did not differ on much else but their levels of traffic. The 2,000 vehicles per day street was considered Light Street, 8,000 traveled on Medium Street and 16,000 vehicles passing down Heavy Street. His research showed that residents of Light Street had three more friends and twice as many acquaintances as the people on Heavy Street. Further, as traffic volume increases, the space people considered to be their territory shrank. Appleyard suggested that these results were related, indicating that residents on Heavy Street had less friends and acquaintances precisely because there was less home territory (exchange space) in which to interact socially. – Project for Public Spaces

]]>On Why Dockless Bike Share Systems are the Futurehttp://carfreeamerica.net/2017/09/18/on-why-dockless-bike-share-systems-are-the-future/
Mon, 18 Sep 2017 16:37:08 +0000http://carfreeamerica.net/?p=1269Baltimore’s new bike share system was long awaited. Discussions between the city and various vendors had been ongoing for several years, and recently built downtown cycle tracks indicated political will and ridership momentum for a successful roll out. While ridership had been solid since the […]

Baltimore’s new bike share system was long awaited. Discussions between the city and various vendors had been ongoing for several years, and recently built downtown cycle tracks indicated political will and ridership momentum for a successful roll out. While ridership had been solid since the system’s start in 2016, cyclists soon began noticing shortages at docking stations even when the app indicated there were bikes available. The truth eventually came out: The system had been victim to massive theft and the system would be shut down for a month for repairs and replacements. While bike share thefts aren’t uncommon, thefts of this magnitude are. Compound this with the public cost of the system, the unpredictability of kiosk bike availability and various shutdowns over the past year, and it’s enough to make any cyclist look for alternatives. What’s the remedy? Perhaps dockless bike share systems.

Over the past 5 years cities have been subsidizing bike share systems across the country. Even with corporate sponsors and non-profit contributions, cities frequent shell out millions of dollars to install systems and keep them running. Proponents call these systems a new form of public transportation which shouldn’t be expected to turn a profit, while critics argue public money shouldn’t be going to “two wheel car rental systems for rich millennials.”. A big portion of public funds go towards the docking systems. Bike share systems, up until very recently, have been dock-based. These are the kiosks where you can pick up, return and pay for a bike, and like any other infrastructure they require a lot of money to keep running.

My own experience with bike share systems has been mixed. I’ve used them when I’m out of town on business or vacation in places like San Diego, Miami and DC. The quality of the bikes and location of the kiosks leave a lot to be desired. The biggest inconvenience I’ve found is finding a bike kiosk near both my trip origin and destination. If you’re in a neighborhood with no kiosks, then you’re out of luck and have to make a car or transit trip to the nearest one. And because you can’t stop the clock on your rental without docking at a kiosk, you’re usually renting the bike for more time than you really need when it’s locked up while you’re running errands.

Enter dockless bike share systems. Recently introduced in Seattle and Dallas, these systems are entirely privately funded and free from the confines of kiosks. They can be picked up and returned anywhere, with GPS tracking showing users exactly where bikes are available. A few benefits of these systems I immediately see:

Pick up and drop off anywhere. For me, this is a big deal. Not having to find the nearest kiosk (which can be several miles apart) and then planning out my bike return route is very convenient. Dockless doesn’t guarantee there will always be a bike near you, but their distribution in many neighborhoods will most likely be better than kiosk systems. And being able to leave the bike anywhere after your trip is done is a big selling point.

Quick installation, easy expansion. Installation involves placing bikes near existing bike racks and other places where ridership is likely. Expansions don’t have to wait for public funds and kiosk installations. Bike and technology upgrades can happen more quickly without expensive kiosks dictating the timeline of innovation.

No public costs and management. This means the private sector is entirely responsible for maintenance, support and PR. If a cyclist has a problem with the system, it’s entirely on the bike share operator to resolve the issue if they want to maintain a viable, profitable business.

Better bikes. Based on my limited bike share use, I’d say dockless bikes are better quality than kiosk based systems. In Dallas, several operators have introduced dockless systems with each fleet being a bit better than the last.

Of course it’s not all flowers and puppies. Dockless systems are still subject to some of the same issues as kiosk based systems like theft and maintenance downtime, but because the system isn’t dependent on expensive kiosks, these issues won’t cripple the system like they have in Baltimore. There’s also the issue of where to place bikes. In Dallas, they often appear in the middle of sidewalks and other odd places. Eventually, public policies may need to be created to make sure they’re not left in places that interfere with pedestrian access or traffic flow. Rebalancing is a less formal process, and guidelines may need to be put in place to make sure bikes are available in a broad cross section of neighborhoods as well. Private systems are also at the mercy of the economy and may lack the permanence of public systems, but with multiple companies stepping into the game, there’s a bit of redundancy if one company goes under.

For now, dockless systems represent a big leap forward for bike access, especially for neighborhoods that wouldn’t have seen a kiosk based system for quite some time.

]]>Reconnecting Cities through Urban Highway Removalshttp://carfreeamerica.net/2017/09/11/reconnecting-cities-through-urban-highway-removals/
Mon, 11 Sep 2017 00:50:15 +0000http://carfreeamerica.net/?p=1208A few years ago I attended the “Re-Imaging Urban Highways” program in Philadelphia. Organized by Drexel University and The Next American City, the event was a who’s who of visionary planners at the top of their game discussing urban highway removals. The presentations focused on […]

A few years ago I attended the “Re-Imaging Urban Highways” program in Philadelphia. Organized by Drexel University and The Next American City, the event was a who’s who of visionary planners at the top of their game discussing urban highway removals. The presentations focused on portions of the Interstate system that cut through cities and ways in which communities, planners, and local politicians can ameliorate the negative impacts of these highway segments.

The history of the Interstate System is long, and going into it here may squander the 10 readers I have left, but I’m willing to take that chance. The core decisions which led to the Interstate being built through cities were made by the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads, the highway lobby, and an array of other people at the state and local level in an effort to “renew” cities, sell cars, and move people as quickly as possible from their offices to suburban homes.

Highway promoters and builders envisioned the new interstate expressways as a means of clearing slum housing and blighted urban areas. These plans actually date to the late 1930s, but they were not fully implemented until the late 1950s and 1960s. Massive amounts of urban housing were destroyed in the process of building the urban sections of the interstate system.

By the 1960s, federal highway construction was demolishing 37,000 urban housing units each year; urban renewal and redevelopment programs were destroying an equal number of mostly-low-income housing units annually. The amount of disruption, a report of the U.S. House Committee on Public Works conceded in 1965, was astoundingly large. As planning scholar Alan A. Altshuler has noted, by the mid-1960s, when interstate construction was well underway, it was generally believed that the new highway system would “displace a million people from their homes before it [was] completed.”A large proportion of those dislocated were African Americans, and in most cities the expressways were routinely routed through black neighborhoods. Raymond A. Mohl, The Interstates and the Cities:Highways, Housing, and the Freeway Revolt

In the mid 20th century, traffic engineers viewed cities as traffic problems to be solved, and often times neighborhoods were destroyed in the name of moving traffic efficiently. As urban living and the reputation of cities have seen a resurgence during the last 20 years, these anachronistic viaducts have created more problems. Places like San Francisco, Portland, Providence, and Boston were left with blighted freeway ribbons through prime (sometimes waterfront) real estate. To paraphrase Peter Park, former Planning Director of Denver and Milwaukee and Loeb Fellow at Harvard: “We used billions of dollars of federal money to devalue some of the most valuable real estate in America.” It’s not just a real estate issue, either. California has issued warnings about building housing within 500 ft of freeways due to their known health impacts, which include increased risk of heart attacks, strokes, cancer, asthma, autism and dementia.

As much as urban highway removal is about getting rid of polluting structures which divide neighborhoods, it’s also about economics. A comment made by the panel at “Re-Imaging Urban Highways” rang especially true: The land dedicated to urban freeways is an open faucet leaking money from the city. Instead of property tax revenue, new businesses and population growth, these highways consume land, depress land values, and give nothing back except a marginally shorter automobile trip for (usually non-resident) commuters.

Kansas City, before highway construction

Kansas City, after highway construction

But getting rid of urban highways sometimes takes an act of god, or god-like political will and community mobilization. To paraphrase Thomas Deller, Director of Planning + Development, City of Providence, many state DOTs don’t care about cities – but they should. In Providence, where I-195 was torn down to create 20 acres of land which will be used to improve the social, economic and environmental health of the city core, requests by city officials for RIDOT to study highway removal alternatives were originally ignored. It took work by community groups which pushed the hand of the governor to demand that RIDOT study highway removal. Other removals, like the Embarcadero in San Franscisco, were catalyzed by earthquakes, while proposals like the I-95 Philadelphia highway cap are piggybacking off of regularly scheduled highway repair/rebuilds. If hundreds of millions are being spent to repair infrastructure, why not make the city a better place for it?

Hearing about the successful highway removal in Providence reminded me of US 40 in West Baltimore and I-345 in Dallas. A recent study by TxDOT identified many of the deleterious issues associated with urban highways I’ve discussed here and proposed an array of design remedies, including tearing down I-345 in Downtown Dallas. If there’s some good that came out of urban highways, it’s that these structures serve as land banks which can spark imaginations and encourage planners and politicians to re-imagine what neighborhoods can be.

If you’d like a closer look at the real world results of urban highway removals, check out the Seattle Mobility Plan’s case studies for a rundown of projects all over the world. The Institute for Quality Communities at the University of Oklahoma also has before and after photos of urban highways. Finally, if you have an hour to spare, Congress for New Urbanism hosted a discussion about the traffic impacts of highway tear downs and how to sell these projects to politicians and the public.

]]>Reimagining a Downtown Dallas Infill Development Site as a Walkable Oasishttp://carfreeamerica.net/2017/09/02/making-the-most-out-of-downtown-dallas-infill-sites/
Sat, 02 Sep 2017 19:47:58 +0000http://carfreeamerica.net/?p=1142The key to creating great infill development projects is making them both high-density and human scaled. A 50 story tower on a superblock with a few token ground floor restaurants was considered exceptional a decade ago, but city dwellers expect a lot more now. Creating […]

]]>The key to creating great infill development projects is making them both high-density and human scaled. A 50 story tower on a superblock with a few token ground floor restaurants was considered exceptional a decade ago, but city dwellers expect a lot more now. Creating the density isn’t the problem – developers can easily add a few more floors to a project if the numbers and zoning work. The challenge seems to be at the ground level. There’s not a lot of profit in creating human scaled streetscapes for big downtown development projects (see the Wilshire Grand in LA ), so that’s where good urban design policies and zoning regulations come into play. Creating a walkable oasis in an auto-centric region doesn’t just happen by accident. It takes forethought and planning.

Downtown Dallas has a plethora of surface parking lots which are opportunities for infill development. The collection of surface lots at the intersection of Field and San Jacinto St. would be perfect for high-density, mixed use towers that could make the most out of the adjacent street network to create a human-scaled activity node. These 4 blocks are an important link between the West End, the Main Street district and the burgeoning Ross Ave. corridor. Getting them right and creating complimentary projects on all 4 corners will create dividends that could benefit Downtown Dallas for generations to come.

Downtown Dallas development opportunities at the intersection of Field and San Jacinto. The focal point of the site (blue star) can be redesigned as a roundabout and flanked by new pedestrian plazas (green). Possible new streets or pedestrian paths (yellow arrows) can host neighborhood oriented retail, restaurants and small alley cafes.A human scaled alley

The high-traffic intersection of Field and San Jacinto at the center of the parcels is an opportunity to make a bold statement by creating small but highly visible public plazas on one, two, or even all 4 corners. Projects like McKinney & Olive in Uptown show that developer-built plazas, when designed right, can be major assets not just for the development but for the entire neighborhood. Similar plazas at this major downtown intersection will announce to tens of thousands of people a day who pass by the site that Dallas is built for people and human interaction. Redesigning this intersection as a roundabout would also be a great way to calm traffic, host a major public art piece and create a more hospitable street for the adjacent plazas.

Many developers are fond of super blocks because they maximize rental space and simplify construction. Segmenting the development site with new streets or even pedestrian-only alleys, however, will create much needed neighborhood-oriented retail opportunities and human-scaled streets – something Downtown Dallas needs more of. Portland, for example, has many 200′ long blocks which do a lot to promote walkability and narrow streets. By creating new streets through this site, we approach that block size and create all sorts of design possibilities at street level. These new local streets can provide European-style public spaces and better connections between separated districts of Downtown Dallas.

To a planner, the first 40 ft. of a building is usually the most important. Creating big projects shouldn’t preclude getting the smaller, street level details right. Field and San Jacinto could be a lively regional activity center with lots of pedestrian traffic similar to the Katyn Memorial circle in Harbor East, Baltimore. The history of Baltimore’s Harbor East development is similar to this site in Dallas. 15 years ago Harbor East was essentially a blank slate with surface parking. It’s now the crown jewel of Downtown Baltimore, and good urban design and transportation planning were key to making this happen. Getting the streetscape right is just as important as getting the architecture right.

All the fancy economic development strategies, such as developing a biomedical cluster, an aerospace cluster, or whatever the current economic development ‘flavor of the month’ might be, do not hold a candle to the power of a great walkable urban place.
― Jeff Speck, Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time

Finally, Amazon has recently announced they’re searching for a second headquarters. This site would be a great candidate: Walkable, transit-accessible, at the center of a low-tax, pro-growth metropolis and big enough to accommodate an array of design options. 4 towers could accommodate their 50,000 employee staff while new street level retail, restaurants and quality urban design could create an urban corporate campus similar to the one ATT is creating a few blocks away. Given Downtown Dallas’ future light rail expansion plans with D2 and its planned bike lane network, this could be one of the most sustainable and accessible sites in the country and vastly superior to Apple’s new auto-centric spaceship-in-a-suburban-park HQ. Amazon’s new HQ should engage the city, not turn its back on it.

]]>How to Remake Dallas’ Fair Parkhttp://carfreeamerica.net/2017/08/27/how-to-remake-dallas-fair-park/
Sun, 27 Aug 2017 19:12:11 +0000http://carfreeamerica.net/?p=1075I recently spent a week in San Diego and toured their burgeoning bike network. While San Diego’s downtown is a gem within its own right, Balboa Park impressed me even more. Spatially integrated, urban and versatile, a person could spend an entire day there and […]

I recently spent a week in San Diego and toured their burgeoning bike network. While San Diego’s downtown is a gem within its own right, Balboa Park impressed me even more. Spatially integrated, urban and versatile, a person could spend an entire day there and never be bored. Its collection of interesting architecture and unique public plazas reminded me of Fair Park and showed me the possibilities for the space beyond the Texas State Fair. Balboa Park not only hosts tourists for its museums and cultural events, but it has become a central neighborhood park for cyclists, picnickers, runners and people who just want to sit under a tree and read. San Diego shows us how to redevelop Dallas’ Fair Park into a world class urban park that can also serve its local neighbors.

Neighborhoods Make The Park

Jane Jacobs wrote that it’s not the park itself but what surrounds the park that dictates its quality and use. She noted how the quality of Philadelphia’s public squares was mostly influenced by the state of their surrounding neighborhoods. Balboa Park is surrounded by Prado Terrace, Cambridge Square, North Park and a collection of other healthy neighborhoods hosting notable mid-century modern and Mediterranean Revival architecture. These neighborhoods give Balboa Park a healthy stream of visitors and eyes on the street.

Fair Park’s west side sees some momentum from Deep Ellum, but the neighborhoods on its east and south sides are struggling. Bringing up the neighborhoods surrounding Fair Park is key to its revival, but that’s often easier said than done. Fortunately these neighborhoods have an enormous asset to leverage to help them succeed – Fair Park itself. Thinking of the park and surrounding neighborhoods as separate entities does disservice to both planning components. A coordinated effort to improve the park and its neighborhoods at the same time will amplify both investments until their momentum becomes self-sustaining.

A Park is Defined by its Edges

Fair Park’s Edge

Balboa Park meets its surrounding neighborhoods face to face. One can live a block away from the park, walk across the street and be in one of its grassy hills in less than 5 minutes. The park is open, permeable and its edges constitute a public front lawn for surrounding communities.

Fair Park’s surface parking creates border vacuums around its perimeter, cutting it off from its surrounding neighborhoods. The formal entrance gates, even when open, give the impression that the space is private. Opening up Fair Park’s edges on Fitzhugh Ave. and Robert B Cullum Blvd is imperative to creating a more inviting park. The first step is removing the fencing around these parking lots and creating safer, more inviting pedestrian connections across these boulevards. The second step in addressing the park’s edges is more complicated.

Balboa Park’s Edge

The massive amount of surface parking around Fair Park is a challenge and an opportunity. How this land is used will help define the park’s edges and the park itself. I’ve heard planners say the space should be used for high-density housing. I’ve heard others say it should be used for public recreational space. I believe the answer is both. On the Fitzhugh side especially, there’s enough acreage to build the eastern side of the parking lots with housing, build the remaining parcels as public open space and outdoor recreation and create a new local street between the two land uses. This new local street will be a strong park edge with restaurants, apartments and retail on one side, and an active public space on the other. On the Robert B. Cullum Blvd side of the park, the parking lots could be entirely recreational space. Once Fair Park gains momentum, the low density, auto-centric commercial land uses on the other side of the boulevard will eventually be redeveloped into better things (see Klyde Warren Park).

A Park Does Many Things

Project for Public Spaces says a park should do at least 10 things. Balboa Park does like 30. Its interior has a collection of museums, public spaces, restaurants, scenic views and bike trails. Its perimeter has hiking and biking trails, shady hills, bocce ball courts and lots of passive green space.

As of now, Fair Park only does a few things well, but that could easily change. Many of Fair Park’s Art Deco buildings are underutilized and could host an array of smaller museums, non-profits, tech start ups, retail and restaurants. New green space could bring neighborhood residents and tourists into the area while providing physical activity opportunities for low income neighborhoods. New bike and walking paths around the park’s perimeter can create high-visibility recreational opportunities as well. Once Fair Park’s surface parking is redeveloped as housing and park space, this new area should be as versatile as possible to create a utilitarian “front door” to the park. Want to play frisbee? Basketball? Just sit and read? All of these things should be possible at the front steps of Fair Park.

Bring the Streets Back to the People

Balboa’s Park’s new pedestrian plazas

San Diego recently built some NYC-style public spaces on Balboa Park’s interior streets. Epoxy, portable chairs, tables and lane narrowing has opened up opportunities for more public space on what used to be very wide park roads. This type of treatment would be perfect for Fair Park given its primary use for the State Fair which requires wide streets. Narrowing Grand Ave. and the Midway using paint/epoxy once year-round foot traffic picks up will create a more welcoming environment for pedestrians and outdoor cafe space opportunities. The roundabout between these two streets could be an excellent public plaza with cafes and restaurants fronting it. These plazas could easily be removed for a few weeks to accommodate the Texas State Fair since curbs will not be relocated.

Bring Fair Park Back to the City

Fair Park has just as many architectural gems as Balboa Park. The only difference is how the spaces between the buildings are leveraged to create value for the park and the city as a whole. As it stands now, Fair Park is a great venue for the State Fair, but it could also be an enormous year-round asset for the entire city. A combination of quality urban design, versatile recreational space and surrounding neighborhood redevelopment could remake the space into a major community asset and year-round tourist destination.

]]>On Being a City Planner in a Room Full of Engineershttp://carfreeamerica.net/2017/08/17/on-being-a-planner-in-a-room-full-of-engineers/
Thu, 17 Aug 2017 20:25:56 +0000http://carfreeamerica.net/?p=1052Great transportation projects are built through broad, inter-disciplinary cooperation. For major projects, city planners and civil engineers usually work together during project development, with planners setting the scope, vision and major design features and engineers making sure the details work and engineering standards are met. […]

]]>Great transportation projects are built through broad, inter-disciplinary cooperation. For major projects, city planners and civil engineers usually work together during project development, with planners setting the scope, vision and major design features and engineers making sure the details work and engineering standards are met. Their different perspectives are often an asset as both professions bring something unique to the table, but because transportation and street right of way has historically been the domain of engineers, many planners are still catching up in trying to influence transportation project design. Here are a few words of encouragement if you’ve ever been the only planner in a room full of traffic engineers.

It’s OK to de-emphasize Level of Service and traffic volume projections. They are only one factor that should be considered during project feasibility analysis. Given the broad benefits of road diets, bike lanes, and other sustainable transportation modes, models predicting automobile volumes decades out into the future shouldn’t be the primary green light during project development.

Aesthetics are just as important as function. Signal poles, bus stops, sidewalks, and the entire streetscape are as much a part of urban design as buildings and parks.

…learning how to make cities rich and fecund and great places to be so we’re comfortable and healthy and happy is the biggest problem we face. The only way we’ll not go crazy is to build beautiful, rich, life-enhancing cities….The majority of open spaces in cities are streets. That means the street system is too important to leave solely to transportation engineers. They’re way too important to leave to just moving traffic. So I’m interested in cities because they are the design problem for a habitable planet. – Laurie Olin

]]>What Downtown Dallas Can Learn from Downtown Oklahoma Cityhttp://carfreeamerica.net/2017/08/07/what-downtown-dallas-can-learn-from-downtown-oklahoma-city/
http://carfreeamerica.net/2017/08/07/what-downtown-dallas-can-learn-from-downtown-oklahoma-city/#commentsMon, 07 Aug 2017 05:05:31 +0000http://carfreeamerica.net/?p=986I recently spent a weekend in Oklahoma City. I stayed in Bricktown where I weaved around the construction of their new streetcar line and ventured out into nearby downtown neighborhoods and several residential areas. It was my first time in the city and I was […]

I recently spent a weekend in Oklahoma City. I stayed in Bricktown where I weaved around the construction of their new streetcar line and ventured out into nearby downtown neighborhoods and several residential areas. It was my first time in the city and I was impressed with their downtown’s progress. Though there are many moving parts and not all of the city’s development plans may come to fruition, I saw seeds of greatness and a lot of things Dallas can learn from.

Downtown Dallas is making great strides in attracting new residents and converting older, vacant buildings into apartments, but something is still missing which downtown Oklahoma City is capitalizing on. From my hotel room I could see their minor league baseball stadium, a movie theater, a laser tag arcade and a wall climbing attraction. A very nice banjo museum was right down the street from the hotel and a 24-hour IHOP was next door. Their botanical gardens was an oasis within their downtown. You could truly forget you were in a city while strolling through it.

Downtown Oklahoma City is becoming a fun, family-friendly destination that compliments the bar and nightlife scene which already exists in Bricktown. While the city has a lack of bike infrastructure just like Dallas, it’s doing a good job of creating a critical mass of mixed use elements and destinations which can be linked by bike infrastructure in the future. Once streetcar construction is complete, several employment centers and major recreation destinations will be connected, creating a synergy that will benefit the entire city center.

Downtown Dallas has also made great strides in the past decade but needs a few more things to make it great. Infrastructure is usually the first thing pundits talk about when critiquing this neighborhood, but I’ll focus on other, equally important issues for now. Here are things we could learn from Oklahoma City.

Family Friendly Attractions. I believe Downtown Dallas already has a critical mass of residents (about 10,000 within the loop), but there needs to be more of a reason for out of towners and suburbanites to visit besides Neiman Marcus and the occasional Opera. Family-friendly attractions like minor league ball parks and even indoor rock climbing places can serve as a good compliment to the night life downtown already has. Downtown should become more well-rounded and this is a great way to do it.

An Oasis. Klyde Warren Park is great but it’s not really an oasis within the city. A more passive park with less programming and a bigger contiguous area would be an excellent counterpoint to Klyde Warren’s activity focus. The park should also be big enough so surrounding traffic isn’t seen. Hopefully the future Pacific Park will fill this void.

Easy Eats and Easy Clothes. Some people may laugh when I call a 24-hour IHOP a neighborhood asset, but in an up and coming neighborhood this kind of restaurant is critical. It’s affordable and well known to people from all across America. Likewise, not many people can afford Neiman Marcus’ $200 t-shirts, so having places like Old Navy or H & M can fill a market gap for middle class people moving to Downtown Dallas.

Culture. The Old Red Museum and 508 Park are already great downtown assets but it seems few locals and visitors know about them due to their peripheral locations. Having a few more places that educate visitors about the history and culture of Dallas (and Texas) and marketing our existing cultural venues can help round out the neighborhood. A history of blues museum, for instance, would be a big win for Downtown Dallas.

Urban Convention Center. Oklahoma City will be building a new convention center soon and integrating it into other downtown amenities. From the renderings it looks like it has good street engagement and integrates well with other downtown amenities. While Dallas’ convention center is most certainly bigger, it’s size and suburban super-block design creates a barrier between downtown and the Cedars neighborhood. If our convention center is ever rebuilt, it should seamlessly fit into our downtown street network and have an engaging street presence.

I look forward to reporting back on Oklahoma City’s streetcar once construction is complete next year – and perhaps even plan a car free stay next time.

]]>http://carfreeamerica.net/2017/08/07/what-downtown-dallas-can-learn-from-downtown-oklahoma-city/feed/3Improving Dallas Through Small Thingshttp://carfreeamerica.net/2017/07/29/improving-dallas-through-small-things/
http://carfreeamerica.net/2017/07/29/improving-dallas-through-small-things/#commentsSat, 29 Jul 2017 23:22:14 +0000http://carfreeamerica.net/?p=821I’m a big fan of the Polis blog. I haven’t found any other collaborative blog that touches on so many interesting global planning and development issues. An article in their archive compared universal social policies with targeted programs. Should education, health care, and other human […]

]]>I’m a big fan of the Polis blog. I haven’t found any other collaborative blog that touches on so many interesting global planning and development issues. An article in their archive compared universal social policies with targeted programs. Should education, health care, and other human development programs go to select groups based on certain criteria, or should all members of the population be eligible? The author favored the latter approach. A related UNICEF study which assessed health care and education advances in developing came to a similar conclusion; consistent, dedicated spending on health care and education across demographic groups created enormous dividends for developing countries. Simply increasing GDP or per capita income was not enough to improve education and health outcomes, though. “Trickle down” human development isn’t enough. Concerted efforts need to be made through efficient programs that work, and these programs don’t necessarily have to be big or expensive.

The UNICEF study makes another interesting but less noticeable point. Sometimes quantity turns into quality. Give enough children access to free primary school, and literacy rates go up and other good things happen in less than a generation. Give enough people access to primary health care, and preventable diseases decline and quality of life goes up for entire populations. Short term increases in the quantity of effective programs and infrastructure can have enormous qualitative benefits down the road. I consider this the reverse of Gresham’s Law: Flood a system with enough “good money”, and it diminishes the influence of bad money.

You may be wondering what this has to do with Dallas livability. During my three years in the city, I’ve read a lot of articles and heard many soliloquies about what people think the city needs. These ideas usually involve big, expensive projects which I believe would have a marginal positive impact on the city. Dallas is known for big things, and that’s not a bad thing, but there is value in small things, too. Maybe we don’t need something new and shiny. Maybe we just need to build off our existing assets in smaller, more efficient ways.

During a recent cycling tour of Dallas I was reminded of its incredible array of architectural gems and interesting urban neighborhoods. These neighborhoods don’t fit preconceived notions of DFW’s auto-centric suburbia, but many of them can give urban neighborhoods in big east coast cities a run for their money. These neighborhoods have already been supported by private investment, but need infrastructure to catch up. Smaller, community supported projects like pocket parks, filling in sidewalk gaps, pedestrian lighting, and even street resurfacing can turn small infrastructure gains into massive improvements in neighborhood quality.

Increasing the number of bicyclists in a city can have far reaching qualitative benefits for a city as well. By increasing the mode share of bicyclists and building more bike infrastructure, we increase retail sales in neighborhoods, reduce traffic speeds, reduce auto emissions, and generally make Dallas a more livable place. Research from the Journal of Injury Prevention also shows that simply increasing the number of people walking and biking can have substantial safety benefits:

A motorist is less likely to collide with a person walking and bicycling when there are more people walking or bicycling. Modeling this relationship as a power curve yields the result that at the population level, the number of motorists colliding with people walking or bicycling will increase at roughly 0.4 power of the number of people walking or bicycling. For example, a community doubling its walking can expect a 32% increase in injuries. Taking into account the amount of walking and bicycling, the probability that a motorist will strike an individual person walking or bicycling declines with the roughly ?0.6 power of the number of persons walking or bicycling. An individual’s risk while walking in a community with twice as much walking will reduce to 66%. Accordingly, policies that increase the numbers of people walking and bicycling appear to be an effective route to improving the safety of people walking and bicycling.

While we already have a burgeoning bike network, we need more of it to make a dent in ridership and create a critical mass of users which can lead to these benefits. The key is creating programs and infrastructure which have low barriers to entry. Want more people to ride bikes? Build bike infrastructure which is comfortable and safe for novice riders. Want more pedestrians on the street? Wider, tree lined sidewalks can help lure drivers out of their cars even in the hot Texas sun. Want more transit riders? Create frequent, intuitive bus routes that go where people want to go. Smaller, low-cost improvements can make big things happen.

Sometimes there’s a single silver bullet that will change everything, but usually it’s small, incremental acts multiplied a thousand times that turn the tide.